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Tip

Pastry

This crumbly, nutty walnut pastry is absolutely delicious, but a bit harder to work with than plain shortcrust. If you're nervous about making your own, simply buy a 500g ready-made pack, roll to a rough rectangle, top with the chopped walnuts, then fold in half and re-roll to line the tin.

Method

First make the pastry. Tip the flours into a food processor with ½ tsp salt and the diced butter. Pulse until you can’t feel any lumps, then tip in the walnuts. Mix the egg yolks with 3 tbsp cold water, then dribble this into the machine while you pulse again until the pastry comes together. Tip the pastry out onto a floured surface, lightly bring it together into a ball, then roll out and line a deep 20-23cm tart tin with overhang. The pastry may crack, but just patch it back together, then cover and chill for 1 hr.

To make the filling, melt the remaining butter in a large pan, then add the shallots and soften for 10-15 mins, until golden and squishy. Stir in the thyme for 1 min, then remove from the heat. Beat the eggs in a jug with the crème fraîche and cream. Crumble in the cheese and season with pepper and a small amount of salt.

Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Blind bake the pastry for 20 mins, remove the baking beans and paper, then bake for a further 15-20 mins until golden and sandy. Reduce the oven temp to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Add the cooled onions to the cream mixture and pour into the case. Sit the fig halves on top, cut side up, sprinkle with some more thyme and bake on the middle shelf for 1 hr-1hr 10 mins until the tart is browning and has a slight wobble – the cheese middle will firm up on sitting. Cool for about 15-20 mins, then remove from tin and serve with a green salad.

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Comments, questions and tips

Comments

I made this recipe as tartlets for a dinner party starter. They look and taste great but the walnut pastry is an absolute nightmare to roll and use because it's quite sticky from the oil of the walnuts and it crumbles so easily. I don't know how anyone has managed to get this into a single larger tin without just piecing it together. I wouldn't make the pastry again but the filling with my home grown figs is delicious, so would make shortcrust next time.

Followed the recipe to the letter however found the pastry too dry and crumbly.
The filling was flavourless in spite of the blue cheese. I think I wasted my home grown figs on this. My oh was of the same opinion.will not be making again.

I followed this recipe to the letter but was disappointed . My OH hated the pastry, it was dry and too crumbly. The filling was too creamy and eggy and lacked flavour in spite of the blue cheese which could hardly be tasted. I think I wasted my home grown figs on this. Not good ! Two stars for the figs.

I made this for the Christmas lunch starter for 8, served cold with salad leaves. It went down a storm. The pastry was a doddle to make though just a bit fiddly to roll out, but easy to fill the cracks once in the dish.

Wonderful, both warm from the oven and cold the next day. I made this for guests and it went down very well with everybody. I increased the quantities by half again and used a 30cm flan tin, which gave 8-10 servings for a main course. I also did the cheat's version of the pastry (using frozen gluten-free pastry) and it turned out very well.

This was very nice and even better cold the following day. My flan dish is a little smaller than recommended so I made a smaller one and put it in the freezer. I shared that last night with a friend and it was still delicious. The figs seemed to survive without problem. My next challenge is to reduce the fat content as now that Xmas is over, it's back on the diet!

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